[CHAPTER VI.]
THE JOURNEY.
In a very short time after the occurrences related in the preceding chapter, the travellers saw a tolerably numerous troop of riders emerge from the forest.
Stoneheart rode at their head, and Don Pedro discovered, with feelings of lively satisfaction, that the horses and mules so audaciously stolen from him were in the rear of the troop.
"Ha!" said he, "The robbers have been compelled to disgorge their prey."
"It would appear so," answered the old man, with a scarcely perceptible smile.
Meanwhile, the hunter had halted the troop at a little distance from the teocali. He himself had dismounted, and was now coming towards the travellers. He soon reached them.
"I perceive that you have succeeded in your enterprise," the Tigercat said to him in a tone of raillery.